Posts Tagged ‘club’

Righto. Here are the answers to the questions posed in the Deep in the rough article on Saturday.

As I said in that post, I hate using superlatives. However, as well as having possibly the worst quality photocopying for the picture round, this quiz also featured the definitively dearest raffle I’ve seen at a table quiz. The going rate for the past number of years (around here anyway) is €2 for a “line”, with three of them offered for €5. Here, €5 got you one line of tickets. Of course, these days, the lines are put into the bucket whole, so this is really one ticket.

Buying multiple lines of tickets seems preferable, normally, for two reasons: it increases your sense of having a chance (you have three tickets in the hat, after all) and it means that, should you win something early, you could still win again. 🙂

Not so on this night in Ballinlough where the usual three lines would have cost you €15!

Last year I took part in a very enjoyable quiz at Ballyhaunis Golf Club so I was quite excited to hear that the same club were hosting another event this year. Confusingly though, it was taking place in Ballinlough – which is a completely different town, in case the different names didn’t already make that clear. 🙂

Things started going wrong, however, when Ger arrived with too many team-mates! There’d been a bit of a miscommunication earlier in the week when I took the heretofore unheard-of step of sourcing potential quizzers for our table. We actually had seven people mooted for the team at one point and I stated that, if we had one more, we could have two tables. However, we went our separate ways then and, while I informed folks that we wouldn’t need their services, Ger went off and found that “extra” team-mate!

So we had five people. I got on the phone and called in my father-in-law, who I knew was keen to take part. He arrived and we let the organisers know that we’d be hoping to find two other folks to make up a team. Fairly promptly we were sorted out. Joe and Rita, a nice couple from ‘out the road’ had come in to the quiz on the off-chance that they could get on a team. As Ger had brought a car-load of family members, he stuck with them and myself and the father-in-law teamed up with the locals.

After a day’s delay, here are the answers to the questions posed in Saturday’s post: Time waits for no man. Before I get to that, I’d like to tell you about two questions we managed to get right on the night.

Firstly, one I was quite proud of. “What was the name of the baby in the film ‘Three men and a baby‘?” From some deep, deep hidden memory of watching the film in school (presumably in religion class) I plucked an answer.

“How sure are you?” my team-mates asked.

“Not at all… but it’s not as if we have anything else.” Well, I was right as it turned out!*

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the other noteworthy question is possibly the easiest I’ve ever heard: “A new terminal was opened in Dublin Airport recently. By what name is it known?”

This one nearly stumped us, as we spent about five minutes over-thinking it. Was there a trick to it? Had the terminal been named in honour of someone? How had we missed it, if so? Surely this question couldn’t be as simple as it appeared?

Last night I hooked up with Ger, his sister Marie and brother-in-law Willie and took part in the Claremorris GAA Club quiz. It was our first outing as a group since our epic triple overtime win last April so we felt confident. However, it wasn’t to be.

The reason for our defeat was quite plain: the music round. Nothing in the world of quizzing makes you feel aged more than listening to some modern tunes and being totally baffled by them. It’s one thing to think “Oh yeah, what is that one?” and spend some minutes trying to drag the song title from the depths of your brain. It’s totally disheartening though to listen to a track and not have a single flicker of recognition.

Unfortunately, the music round was worth 20 points (one each for title and artist) and, being the only such round on the night, meant that doing badly here was doubly punishing. We scored 12/20, with the eventual winners getting 20. Their not-so-secret weapon was a teenage daughter.

Whenever I host a quiz, I like to give the clientele a little something extra. Anyone can write 100 (or 60) questions but can you create a quiz that folks will remember in the months and years ahead?

So it was a pleasant surprise to find that last night’s quiz at the Ballyhaunis Golf Club was a real diamond in the rough (pun pun). It was a small quiz, in terms of entry, with just nine tables taking part, but the production quality on show was first class.